#84 — Public Speaking Anxiety: From Panic Attack On-Air to Keynote

The Introverted Leader: Beat Imposter Syndrome to Elevate Your Leadership & Get Promoted

Host Greg Weinger interviews Tamara Lane about her journey from experiencing a debilitating panic attack on live national television to becoming a confident

Key takeaways

• Tamara Lane experienced a full panic attack while working as an on-air correspondent that she initially mistook for a seizure or stroke.
• A practical tool for reframing anxiety is to write down a worst-case scenario and then rewrite it in the most positive way possible to align mental projections with reality.

Main topics

• Public speaking anxiety
• Panic attack recovery

Notable quotes

If you're not doing for a few hours every day, what will get you towards your number one priority?

Conclusion

The episode offers empowering strategies for introverted leaders to tr

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Have you ever practiced to talk dozens of times, walked into the room, and just felt your body run away with you? Your heart races, your hands start to shake, and there's that quiver in your voice. That's public speaking anxiety. And for many introverted leaders, it's a loop that quietly decides which rooms you allow yourself to be in and which ones you avoid. My guest today spent her 20s buckling under pressure like that in Broadway auditions. once had a full panic attack on live national television, but rebuilt herself into someone who keynotes conferences and runs a startup using tools you can steal today. Welcome to The Introverted Leader. It's a podcast helping introverted leaders embrace your underrated, quiet strengths so you can get promoted and start earning what you deserve. I'm Greg Weinger. I have over 25 years of leadership experience, and yes, I am an introvert. My guest today is Tamara Lane. She's a former on-air correspondent turned startup founder, and this is the first time she's shared on any podcast how she rewired her brain to speak in front of people without losing her body to the panic. Before we start, I made a free masterclass for introverted leaders. It's called Why Everything You've Been Told About Getting Ahead As An Introvert Is Wrong. 30 minutes. It features the three moments that decide whether you advance or stay where you are, and one practice to start this week. Get started at gweinger.com slash masterclass. That's g-w-e-i-n-g-e-r dot com slash masterclass. One word. All right, let's get into it. Speaker 1 (1:45) All right, Tamara, welcome to the show. Speaker 2 (1:47) Hi, thank you for having me. Speaker 1 (1:50) Yeah, so good to have you. I'll kick you off with a softball question here. Do you consider yourself an introvert, extrovert, or other? Speaker 2 (1:59) Now it would be other. My natural tendency is to be an introvert, but I've had to train to be an extrovert. Speaker 1 (2:08) All right. Can you describe what does this training program look like? Speaker 2 (2:12) Well, my training was the school of hard knocks, right? I was, I began my life as a ballerina and a dancer training. And, you know, it's something that you, you train and then you have to get up on stage, right? And you have to do it in front of people. And it's a terrifying experience. As I was older in my 20s and trying to figure out what was next in my career, I was trying to be on Broadway and I was going for roles where you had to sing. And it was like, that was catastrophic for me. I would be panicked before going in to sing. I would practice with a coach and I would have everything down perfectly and I would go in and I would just buckle. I could not. seeing in front of people. Just couldn't do it. And so I just said, it's not for me. I can't do it. Can't do it. And then when I was like later in my career, as I was working in documentaries, I had the opportunity to then become an on-air correspondent. And that's where that training really started to hone in because it's incredibly nerve-wracking. And so I was practicing with my friends. I was figuring out how to do this, how to speak in front of people, how to speak to a camera. It's just not something that's natural for everybody. So I had the practice of every day figuring out how to get better and better and better until then it became something that I'm incredibly comfortable with, right? So getting on and speaking to you, I can do. But then I still have to practice. I was just the keynote speaker at a conference. I still stand up. I practice. I practice. I practice. I get myself into the zone. I talk myself through it. I use my coaching tools, like all of those things. So it's a skill that I have repeatedly practiced and trained for is to be in front of people, to speak, to be able to lead. Speaker 1 (4:12) Yeah. It's very validating for me to speak to you and hear your experience because it mirrors how I'm personally wired so much. It seems like I, like you, am somehow attracted to these places of visibility, these situations. You were trying to be on Broadway. That's a very visible kind of place. Even though you backed away from that, you still came forward and found this other situation where you could be more visible as maybe something a little bit more... comfortable. And underneath that is sort of this undercurrent I've always had. It doesn't matter if I'm in front of a stage of 1500 people or five people, there's this inner flutter that seems to always be there. And you can kind of manage through tools. Speaker 2 (4:58) Yeah, it's funny because I'm so blessed to have been an on-air correspondent and a journalist and do the work that I did. That path wasn't something I was looking for. I was very comfortable behind the camera doing documentaries and working behind the scenes. And then I got presented the opportunity and I've always been very keen on if you're presented, you know, the universe brings you an opportunity, you say yes. And I did. And that took my life in a completely different trajectory. But it was different than what I had expected it to be. I think that that's something that's really interesting and important that when I reflect back as to like, I wasn't seeking out being an on-air correspondent. I got presented a phenomenal opportunity that then changed my life. Speaker 1 (5:44) Yeah. Well, there's some people who might think that's not an accident. Speaker 2 (5:49) True. But Speaker 1 (5:50) it's perspective. So if you're comfortable talking about this, I recently spoke about having a panic attack on my episode that reminds me of Dan Harris, who famously had a panic attack on air and speaks about it publicly. And could you describe your experience with those sort of feelings? Speaker 2 (6:12) Yeah. So I, you know, I spoke about kind of like when I was trying to be on Broadway and that and how nerve-wracked I would be getting up on stage and singing, like that didn't go away. There was something in my brain that I couldn't figure out how to switch off when I then moved on to being on-air correspondent. And so before going on air, I would always get like so nervous. Like my body would have a reaction just every time, kind of no matter what I did. And I could control it enough for most of the time. And then all of a sudden, one day I was on set and I thought I was having a seizure. My Speaker 1 (6:51) whole Speaker 2 (6:51) body just started shaking. I was like, I'm either having a seizure or I'm having a stroke. There is something completely wrong. I can't talk, right? My heart was racing and I kind of got off stage or off the set. And I was like, what just happened? And I went and I talked to the doctor and they were like, you had a panic attack. I was like, oh my God. So my body, the stress and the anxiety and the panic about that had carried to the point where all of a sudden my body just said no more. no more like you were not dealing with this. And so I had to go start talking with a therapist to help me talk through how do I fix this problem? And it was probably one of the best things I did in my life because it is amazing how these things that manifest in your body, the stress can then just overtake you. And interesting enough, so when I was talking to a friend of mine about this, Met with a friend. I was like, you won't believe what happened. Like, this is what happened on set. He was like, I'm friends with Dan Harris. You should go meet Dan Harris. And so I did. I went to the studios and I sat with him. He gave me his book, signed, and I read through it. So I was